Outside, Looking In
by Rhian Evelscire
Summary: The reunion moment after the rescue in episode 2.08 'Rose', retold from Damon's perspective.  ONESHOT.


AN:

I know I should be working on _Tread Lightly_ but while trying to get through my plot block with that story I discovered The Vampire Diaries. I am officially a hardcore Stelena fan. And I wasn't surprised that Damon/Elena dominates this fandom. Fandom is primarily there to allow fans to live out what we all deep - down know isn't going to happen in canon.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate Damon as a character, he's a big part of what makes VD so entertaining. And I'm liking him more and more as he's undergoing his redemption, but I'm too good at empathising with Elena. I have a younger brother with roughly the same age gap between us as Elena and Jeremy. As a big sister your feelings aren't exactly motherly, but they're pretty close. If a guy did to my little brother what Damon did to Jeremy, I would END him. Her love for Stefan and the fact that Jeremy is alive are an enormous part of why Elena even tolerates Damon anymore.

Factor in all the other crap Damon has pulled and forget a snowball, he doesn't have a snowflake's chance in hell of Elena loving him back. Delena is never going to happen, not in canon. Even if Elena forgives Damon, she'll never forget.

I think Rose is going to be Damon's new love interest.

* * *

Outside Looking In

* * *

I've never truly understood until this moment.

She's standing at the top of the staircase telling me to allow the woman to go free. Then her eyes fill; brimming with love, relief and joy. She gasps. And then she's running forward, down the steps with her face lit up and teardrops resting on her lashes. Her happiness is tangible. I could scoop it up in handfuls and store it in my pockets.

And I'm sure that she's racing into my arms.

My eyes haven't yet left her face. I start to move to the bottom of the staircase. One glance away from her and then I see. Stop. Foot frozen mid-step. My foot falls to the ground.

But time continues moving.

She's in his arms now. Her arms wrapped tight around his form and her feet off the ground. Her eyes are closed, faced turned into his neck. She's breathing him in, I think.

Then her eyes open again and she sees me. The love and joy fade from her eyes. The glow of happiness dims. Eyes wary, she mouths "thank you".

"You're welcome" I mouth back. Those guarded eyes stay on me a moment longer. The half-smile I can feel on my face hurts me. I can't imagine what my eyes reflect.

Her eyes flutter to a close again. Her face turns into his neck.

If someone tried to take her from his arms right now they would have to tear her arms from their sockets to pull her away. There is nowhere else in the universe she would rather be than in his arms right now. It might as well be written on her face.

_Of course._ Before they filled with her love for him, her eyes had glanced to my right.

She was looking at him the whole time.

* * *

Only three paces separate them and me. Yet right now the distance feels like a gulf. They safely ensconced in their world of two. Me with my face a breath from the window pane; outside, looking in.

I believed it when I told her that she was deceiving herself, my brother and me. I believed there really was something between her and me that she wasn't facing.

The tormenting phrases which fell from her perfect lips then, echo. _"I love Stefan. It's always going to be Stefan."_

She wasn't lying to anyone. There was nothing for her to ignore. What I'd seen in her eyes during that dance I'd construed as attraction and the beginnings of love. But it was just a thrice removed shadow of what _maybe_ could have been. If I had been a different person (_more like Stefan_); if she had never met my younger brother.

Her heart belongs to my little brother. And most likely always will.

And with the final death of my hope I can finally see how perfect they are. They deserve each other; belong together.

But a wisp of selfishness lingers in me. With the vervained necklace Stefan had given her dangling from my grip, I begin to form a plan.

I just need for her to hear it once.


End file.
